Snape 100
by Relala
Summary: He sees a hundred moments as he dies on the floor, the life slowly slipping out of him.•DRABBLETS•
1. Moments 1 To 11

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

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**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 1 - 11

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** Ocean of Dreams/lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

**SHIP(s):** Always - (Severus Snape/Lily Evans)** /** Pride and Prejudice - (Severus Snape/Minerva McGonagall)

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** _This story is a collection of challenges which have (mostly) been issued by the LJ community "snape100". Most are Drabblets, some are longer. There will be exactly 100 moments spaced between chapters when I have completely finished. I've no idea how long this will take me__,__ nor how many chapters there will be. I hope to be finished by November 2009 but no promises since I don't have a Flashdrive anymore. Enjoy. And remember to review if you've read anything. No one likes a lurker._

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**(1) BEST MEMORY**

The pint-sized wizard lay stretched across the night-chilled seats of the Muggle car, half of his mind somewhere off in dreamland and another part seamlessly aware of reality--the feel of the bumpy highway underneath the wheels of the vehicle and the feather softness of his Father's early October jacket draped across his tiny frame from neck to knees. The streetlamps which lined the roads shone as brilliantly as any artificial sun could have ever hoped, seeping through the skin of his eyelids to leave playful images of fiery oranges and reds. He smiled contently at this half-life, pink lips parting and lungs releasing a sigh.

"Sev?" a deep rumble of a voice asked. "You awake, Son?"

Severus raised a chubby fist and knuckled his eyes gently, dimly opening the brownish black windows of his soul for a fleeting second before slipping over the edge of sleep. He tumbled headlong into a world of clouds and happy moments. From far away he heard the thundering laugh of his pleased Father and felt his great paws rumple his greasy hair.

"Love you, Severus."

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**(2) ENVY**

With a snarl threatening to erupt from between his thin lips, and a blinding rage within his heart, Severus watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek; Watched from within the shadows as she giggled and blushed, her top hat with immeasurable envy and betrayal, he retreated back to the coldness of his dungeons, slamming the door to his office so hard that the pictures on the walls shivered within their glass panes.

It _should_ have been his lips on hers beneath the mistletoe this Christmas, _his_ fingertips sweeping along the smoothness of her cheekbones to feel the fire of her pinkish blush. The hat had fallen to the floor, forgotten in a moment of intense passion.

But that was only a dream and he was within his room, tangled in the chains of envy, and, once again, all alone with tears staining his face and not a friend in sight.

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**(3) FIRST DAY AS PROF**

Young Severus Snape had on no occasion ever been one for nervousness, had never been a fan of shyness or uncertainty. From the moment these worthless emotions had taken root within his tender boyhood like poisonous weeds, he had abhorred them with the loathing of a man. As he stood once more in a crowded classroom of students at Hogwarts, he realized that the fact that he had grown up had not affected that hatred in any way. He still glared at the nervous twitches of the younger boys, glared at the shy glances from the adolescent girls and sneered at the children who sat in the back rows, unsure if they knew the answers.

"Well? Are you all a bunch of imbeciles?"

It was never a way of teaching for him, it was merely who he had always been. Sometimes we're unable to change something which has been a part of our nature for so long.

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**(4) KIDS**

"_Now ... how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" she asked, her quill poised over her clipboard._

"_Fourteen years."_

Fourteen years. That statement said it all. Fourteen years of teaching, clean living, brought sunrises and sunsets, trivial gossip, loneliness, timid breath being forcefully dragged into his lungs. And, above all else, fourteen years worth of adolescent faces, shifting like a river between every single student.

Fourteen years. Fourteen years. How many students could one teach within that amount of time? How many were alive and well? How many dead? How many names could he properly recall? How many faces did he see each day, how many had he now forgotten even within the last few hours?

Severus Snape silently began a roll-call within his head: _Brocklehurst. Abbott. Weasley. Zabini. Finnigan. Bulstrode. Crabbe. Potter. Brown. Flinch-Fletchley. Granger. Bones. Stebbins. Nott. Parkinson. Malfoy. Perks. Turpin. Fawcett..._

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**(5) THE MEETING**

It's been decades, long horrible years stretching the span of eternity, since he has been here last. Odd, though, how it seems to his aching heart like it was only in yesteryear that he and she had frolicked here. If the merry-go-round hadn't been absent or the swing set chains not bronze-coloured with rust...why, it might have seemed like only yesterday that he had been ten-years-old. He could go down the street now, couldn't he, and pound on the Evan's door? And she would appear, as she always did, red hair tussled carelessly with the art of childhood and shoelaces undone. Silly girl never knew how to tie a knot back then.

He wanders over to the swings and throws himself into one, closing his eyes and falling into a world of memories and hopefulness. Maybe she will be alive when he wakes up. Maybe she will come and knock on _his _door.

But the knock never comes and the only sound is that of another body sitting down within the swing beside him.

"Go away, stranger."

"I'm not leaving, Snape!"

Glancing up in mild shock, he finds the face of a Muggle sister, somewhat changed and half forgotten. He struggles to think of something worthwhile to say to her but can find nothing of importance that needs to be voiced. _I hate you__,_are the only words he would be able to form and the atmosphere speaks for itself: _I miss her._

They both do.

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**(6) DEATH or IT'S YOUR WORLD NOW (Song by The Eagles)**

Severus Snape is lying on the dirty floor of the Shrieking Shack within a soaking puddle of his own crimson blood. He is dying. The fragments of his life--the memories--are flowing out of his mind like water with gentle ease, seeping out like silver mist, almost as if to make it seem like everything had all been so meaningless. You'd think, wouldn't you, that a lifetime of memories so full of pain and love would be thicker?

Severus lets it go. It doesn't matter and he cannot really hold on to coherent thoughts anymore. All he is truly aware of is the fact that he is leaving his worlds behind--the worlds of good and evil which he so accidentally melded together. He takes his last breath, acknowledging peacefully that those worlds will never again belong to him. Perhaps, he thinks, it is _his _world now.

_Good luck, Lily's son._

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**(7) THANK YOU**

He is twelve, huddled in a corner and weeping. There are no friends in sight to lend him a comforting hand and her heart is touched by his helplessness and vulnerability. The world outside Hogwarts is a cruel place. The world of children is torture.

She walks with crisp steps over to his side and smiles hesitantly at his wide-eyed, curious, expression when she magic's a cloth and a cup of water into existence. She drenches one tip of the cloth in water and begins to dab the tears of his face so that the salty tears are washed away by lukewarm liquid. It always used to comfort her as a girl, and she hopes it will aid this little child somehow.

"T-t-thank you, Professor McGonagall."

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**(8) TURN BACK TIME (Song by Cher) FOR Song Title Shuffle**

All of the soon-to-be Death Eaters, every last one, agree that Severus Snape is better off without that Mudblood Lily Evans. They joke and laugh and say, "did you see the look of pain on her face!" and, "moving up in the ranks of the world, eh, Severus? No more Mudblood whores?" But Severus does not join in the fun. He is consumed by the twin beasts of sorrow and regret. Withering in physical remorse. His apologies are worthless...and he cannot turn back time.

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**(9) GREEN**

There's a thin line between love and hate, Severus knows, because he has contemplated that quote every single year since her death, straining so desperately to resolve whether he hates or loves this time of year. It's so gorgeous in these spring days that words like "dazzling" and "magnificent" leave him with the taste of bitter dirt in his mouth, they are nice words, decent words, pretty words. But how could words alone ever be enough?

The Earth has exploded into thousands of variations of green. The leaves on the trees are lush and shiny, lime-coloured in the sparkling noonday drops of sunlight. The grass underneath his feet has gone from being brown and withered under mounds of whiteness, to darkened emerald green from all the rainwater. Roots from misshapen tress have taken to bursting straight out from under the flagstones of the courtyards, as healthy and as green as a newborn child cradled in the arms of its mother. Spring has come to call upon Hogwarts.

It's heart-wrenching, it's breathtaking. It's a bit of both those things combined.

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**(10) MIRRORS**

Sometimes an individual doesn't have to be looking into a flat piece of polished glass to see themselves reflected. There are moments--rare ones--in which a person sees themselves within the soul of another individual, staring out at them from different coloured eyes within a different set of skin. Yet the reflection is there, so clear and undeniable that one might feel to the need to reach out foolishly with words or hands to make sure it is _not _themselves recreated in the flesh, come back to haunt their waking moments.

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**(11) RED AND GREEN or ****SHADOW**** DANCING (Song by Andy Gibb.)**

Squinting his black eyes to see through the crowded Great Hall, which had been transformed into a splendidly lit Ball Room, Severus spied the twirling form of Minerva McGonagall within the arms of Ludo Bagman, and snarled with bitter envy. How he knew this feeling! How well he was acquainted to the snobbery of love. It burned within the chest, made the eyes see shades of red and green. It did no good to wear one's heart on their sleeves--especially when one's sleeves were of the finest browns and glittering gold, picked especially for this event to please the woman of his dreams. But as Ludo swirled elegantly with Minerva across the floor, Severus wondered how he could hold her when she wasn't even his.

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**_"Reviews are the only payment FanFiction authors receive. Even if it's just a word or two, leaving a review lets me know you've passed this way."_**

First draft: 06-10-09

Revisions: 1-5-2010


	2. Moments 12 To 22

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

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**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 12 - 22

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** Ocean of Dreams/lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

**SHIP(s):** Fuchsia Snake (Severus/Tonks)** /** Prudence & Potions (Severus/Hermione)

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**(12) PRIDE**

In the end, it all comes down to pride for Severus Snape. He stands there, silent and so very sorry for what he has done, as Lily flings her accusations at him. _("You and your precious little Death Eater friends__--__you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?") _And he just stands there and takes it. In the end it all comes down to pride for the Half Blood Prince...and he finds that it prevents him from saying what needs to be said.

He cannot find the words to say he is sorry.

She doesn't give him the chance to apologize anyway.

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**(13) FIRST INCIDENT OF ACCIDENTAL MAGIC**

Little Severus gazed down into his bowl of muddy red tomato soup with a frustrated scowl and flung a glare at his mother as she idly chatted on the phone with the fat lady who lived across the street. Mama had created this dreadful concoction for three nights in a row. Three nights! It hadn't been _too bad _the first time...now, however, it tasted like stale dirt. (He suspected it was leftovers.) He dipped his metal spoon into the liquid and swirled it around like he had seen his mother do with her potions and after a few stirs he lifted the spoon and smiled. It was a mischievous grin. Liquid chocolate dripped off the spoon and filled the bowl where red soup had once been contained.

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**(14) THE REASON**

Severus stands in the middle of the icy Hogsmeade street, huddled within a large pack of students which do not seem to recognize him in his Muggle jeans and sneakers, hoodie pulled up over his greasy hair, concealing his pale face. He is unable to pull his eyes away from their smiling faces. Their dancing eyes and laughing mouths which open to expel silver streams of freezing air. This, he thinks, is the reason why he killed Albus Dumbledore. Why he did all those horrendous deeds. Because in the grand scheme of things, Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore had never mattered. They had merely been Knights in the Chess game of life, protecting those who could not fight so that life would go on.

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**(15) TEA**

Tea was Severus's automatic response to anything bad. When he heard of his Father's death in a Muggle car crash at age twelve, he had adopted the addiction without knowledge as he boiled a pot and made himself a cup of scalding hot peppermint tea. There was just something so comforting about holding the warmed cup within his hands, feeling the burn along his tongue as it flowed smoothly down his throat and heated up his insides. Tea, it seemed to Severus, was the key to healing a heart and moving on with life.

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**(16) SNAPE WINS**

Severus' emotions are all stirred up, like ingredients within a cooking bowl. He's unable to make heads or tail of the event. Does he want to jump for joy or curl into a ball and weep in sorrow? Sirius Black is dead. How does that make him feel?

Sirius is dead; a man who he has known for years and has thought of countless times, is no more. He has fallen prey to the New War, becoming half-recalled memories, joining Lily and James and all the others in the After Life. Severus sheds a tear for his enemy.

Sirius is dead, a man who tormented him relentlessly and even tried to get him killed when they were no more than boys. A man who loathed him with every fiber of his being will never take another breath nor speak another insult. Severus smiles.

He has won.

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**(17) RETURN TO CHILDHOOD**

McGonagall bounced the toddler around on her hip, marvelling at the wide-eyed look of wonder which lit his pale face. When she had gotten wind of the Weasley twins' stupidity of performing an anti-aging spell within the dungeons, she had swiftly dashed down to the scene of the crime, sure that they had somehow botched the attempt. No sixth years could ever manage the spell. Grown witches were known to die from it. She arrived expecting something extremely bloody and fatal.

What she found was so much worse.

A three-year-old Severus Snape, black eyes weeping and lungs wailing for his Mamma, sat upright in the middle of the floor. Not quite sure what to do--she had never been one for children under the age of eleven--she had swept the boy into her arms and cooed at him gently. Smiled at him a little. The screaming stopped; he stared at her in awe.

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**(18) STOPPER IN DEATH**

"_Why," said Snape without preamble, "why did you put on that ring? It carried a curse, surely you realized that. Why even touch it?"_

Albus Dumbledore looked as frail and weak as a dying doe within the Headmaster's chair, almost as if he were an infinitesimal object in comparison to the marvellous sword of courage and the wicked ring of cowardice which had done him in. This moment in time belonged to the sword and the ring that, even after the battle had finished, still carried on with their fight within the bloodstream of the great wizard. Severus had put the stopper in death. For now.

But the sword and the ring would claim their pound of flesh.

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**(19) SNAPE AND FRIENDSHIP**

They become friends over awkward breakfasts at Number 12. Hers was the morning shift and his the night and by the time he was leaving she was making breakfast for herself. Her mother's nagging voice in the back of her mind made her ask him to (please) stay. Severus had. It then became a ritual. She actually asked him every morning, as if not knowing his answer would be yes. He always made a show of taking off his boots and cloak and sitting down with her. Every single morning.

It wasn't the best of friendships and nothing would ever actually become of it. But there was just something so very comforting within their friendship which neither one of them could ever explain. He liked to call her "Nymph" in a low tone, a smirk on his lips. She returned the favor by calling him "Grease ball" and turning her hair slimy black.

He saw the intelligence behind her eyes.

She saw the goodness in his heart.

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**(20) BIRTHDAY**

Severus is turning ten-years-old and Lily thinks this is a rite of passage, a coming of age thing which Severus doesn't understand at all. She tells him that it is age ten when things change for all Muggle children. Severus tells her that it's next year which means something to him. It is at eleven when things change for children in his world. She doesn't listen to a word of it. Lily insists that both ages should mean something because he is not only a wizard. He is half-blood. Muggle and wizard come together, two cultures making him into who he is. Not one.

It will be many decades later before he realizes she was right.

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**(21) HERMIONE GRANGER**

Hermione Granger has always been an _insufferable know-it-all. _

She knows the memory of tender lips upon her own and the feel of the chill gravestone upon her gentle fingertips, the tickle of the breeze along her neck as she visits him on this dreary Tuesday. She takes solace in the memory of his greasy black hair, swinging across his yellow face as if to close the curtains on some tragic play.

She will never be a _complete _know-it-all, however, because what she longs to know lays deep within the ground, all but a bitter memory to the world which will soon be forgotten by everyone but her. Hermione won't let herself forget.

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**(22) MUGGLE STUDIES**

Muggle school is absolutely horrible! From the confining wooden desks, the dreadful black and red chequered uniforms of dress pants and vests, and the horrid clang of the recess bell, right down to the stupid writing utensils. Severus soon learns that pencils leave blisters between one's fingers and that if you touch their shavings your skin itches. The longing for the smooth scratching of feather quills consumes his every nerve. He whiles away many Math exams and science lessons by dreaming of wands made of beautiful holly and letters carted by the fluttering winds

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**_"Reviews are the only payment FanFiction authors receive. Even if it's just a word or two, leaving a review lets me know you've passed this way."_**

First draft: 06-10-09

Revisions: 1-5-2010


	3. Moments 23 To 33

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

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**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 23-33

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

**SHIP(s):** Always - (Severus Snape/Lily Evans) **/** Dungeon and Domination - (Lucius/Severus) **/** Tigereye - (Severus/Lockhart)

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ Late because of Canada Day, I'm afraid. Got all caught up in the pretty coloured fireworks and was going to scribble down a drabble about it__,__ which I never got around to making. Not that this matters of course since no one is reading this story anyway. (Maybe I'll make one for the next chapter, however.) _

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**(23) MUGGLE CAREER**

Had he been a Muggle, Severus Snape would have been an astronaut. Even as a fully achieved wizard he still dreamed of gazing down at the Earth from behind a window instead of staring up at the twinkling stars.

Sure, the magical world knew about space more than the Muggles did with all their Venus Charms, Neptune Water Spells and Saturn Potions which could only be evoked when said planets where in proper timeline, but none of that meant anything. The wizarding world had never cared for, or considered, space travel and Severus knew that this was yet another cultural prejudice. After all, weren't they the elite of all species? Nothing was out there!

At least the Muggles were making an effort to find other species. The magical world, however, was deaf and blind to all change. Maybe it always would be.

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**(24) UNFINISHED LETTER**

_Our little merry-go-round game has me swirling around in circles, Lily; I've spent more than six years adoring you in secrecy. But I've grown weary of these childish games, weary of needing without gaining an iota of satisfaction. I find that I would much rather be cast out from your affections than hidden away like a dirty play-toy you're ashamed to show others. I'm sick of being shoved into broom sheds and only getting kisses in their darkness. I guess what I really mean to say is__--_

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**(25) AS YOU LIKE IT, II, iii. (69-70)**

Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy meet in Hogsmeade down by the Shrieking Shack, their faces pale underneath the silver beams of the Full Moon. It has been two long years since Lucius left his best friend behind for the world of adults, and when he looks into Severus' face he can see nothing of the innocent child he once was and Severus can see nothing of the newly created man that Lucius has claimed he has become in his letters and postcards. In this moment it is hard for both of them to acknowledge that they are growing up faster than they themselves had ever expected.

"You know why I'm here, Sev," he drawls, just a hint of nervousness behind the unplanned sentence. With Severus, everything is always unrehearsed and raw. "I've found a way to become a Death Eater...The Dark Lord has..."

Severus nods his head and smiles, feeling as if a knife is being twisted into his stomach.

_"I will follow thee to the last gasp with truth and loyalty."_

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**(26) DREAMING**

Cloudland isn't made of fluff and whiteness, but rather of the shadows and lightning that exist in one's worst nightmares. All happy thoughts and cheerful dreams have been drained like the last drop in a bottle of Firewhiskey. He knew this would happen, knew what he would dream before his head hit the pillow, and he had done nothing to stop it. Tonight he will remember the scene from his Fifth Year--Lily's grass-green eyes, Potter's laughter and Black's insults. The catastrophic word.

On the nightstand lies a bottle of Dreamless Sleep, full to the brim with shimmering amber liquid. It goes untouched, its magic sealed within as the man continues to be haunted.

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**(27) SUMMERTIME**

The month of June is the hardest for sixteen-year-old Severus Snape. The days flow swiftly by like a downhill stream, his limbs ache with the restlessness of the young and his mind refuses to make any sense of his subjects. He's barely able to open his eyes in the morning when his alarm goes off for school and no one is home behind his black eyes as he drags his body into the Great Hall. The world around him fades into white noise and blurred faces, unreachable sunshine and lost items which he will have to search for before he is finished packing. Summertime has arrived at Hogwarts and all the students can feel it.

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**(28) KNOWLEDGE**

Sometimes Severus wanders out to the Shrieking Shack all alone, his breath a rattle in the chilly night air and his heart the pounding of a steal drum. His terror doesn't matter, though, because he can never hear himself. The only sounds on these nights are the bloodcurdling wails of the wolf that is trapped within the tiny household.

Severus squeezes his eyes shut; feeling the bunching of eyelid skin against his cheeks but the pain isn't enough to distract him. Isn't enough to make him forget the facts. The howls are not that of a rabid beast, he knows, but rather the screams of a young man who is forced to endure this torture for life.

It isn't the boy Severus hates. It's the knowledge.

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**(29) IN MY HEART**

Severus gazes at the photograph with mingled pain and joy, lost in the beauty of Lily's silent laughter. Her grass-green eyes sparkling with mirth, tender gloss-covered lips sparkling under the lighting, long red hair falling over her shoulders and into her face. _At least_, he thinks, _her forever is a cheerful one. _

He rips the photo in half, tossing aside the two Potter men who have wounded him like no others, with barely a flick of his hand. They drop to the ground; he doesn't bother checking to see where they land. Instead, he places the picture inside his robes, keeping Lily's laughter close to his heart.

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**(30) WALKING**

Narcissa's beauty had faded like a black and white Polaroid left in some damp cellar, and she was more than a little prone to tears since Lucius' capture, but Severus found himself drawn to her like a moth to the flaming candle. In his black eyes she shone like a diamond; pale yet twinkling brilliantly in the inky darkness of his world.

She, like him, had a purpose. A reason to keep her eyes forward and her feet on the ground in a barren wasteland of what had once been their paradise. Even when their hearts lay shattered on the floor like glass they pushed onwards, trying desperately to provide a safe haven for those they loved.

Hand in hand, they kept walking, never letting go.

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**(31) ONE MORE DAY **

Dawn arrived in the form of lemon yellow and pumpkin orange splashes of colour across the skyline, and the young man breathed a sigh of relief, the nervous terror rattling out of his lungs and becoming white smoke in the chilly air. Nearby, the shouts of trained Auours echoed like gunshots as they finished searching the towering grass with Stunning Spells and Detection Charms. No Death Eaters had been apprehended. Within the shadows of a Muggle back alley Severus Snape silently thanked whatever gods existed for that small mercy. He was free, at least for one more day.

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**(32) SNAPE THE SPY**

Severus Snape knelt outside the doorway, the base of a water glass pressed tightly against his tiny seashell ear, straining to hear the muted whispers.

Normally he didn't have to go to such extreme measures to listen in on his parents, their voices having long since gotten used to saying everything in blistering screams. Today, however, there was something terribly strange happening on the other side of the doorway and little Severus wanted in on it. Sighing in frustration he walked to the kitchen, returned the water glass to where it belonged and snatched up a plastic cup.

He was beginning to suspect they'd used some sort of charm to stop him from spying on them. Yet Imperturbable Charms, he decided, were off the list. What was a charm to stop Muggle spying? He flopped down on the floor and began to list off charms.

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**(33) WORDLESS**

Under the blue illumination of Severus' wand-light, Lockhart twinkles just as bright and as beautiful as any fallen star. His beauty seems to dazzle the Potion Master's eyes and cloud his mind with a frosting-thick haze, so that he merely holds his wand aloft as he lies in bed and gazes at his lover's sleeping form. Wordless, is what Severus becomes when his eyes meet this tender-faced Cupid. Utterly wordless.

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**_"Reviews are the only payment FanFiction authors receive. Even if it's just a word or two, leaving a review lets me know you've passed this way."_**

First draft: 06-10-09

Revisions: 1-5-2010


	4. Moments 34 To 44

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc., are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

* * *

**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 34-44

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

**SHIP(s):** Always - (Severus Snape/Lily Evans) **/** Dungeon and Domination - (Lucius/Severus) **/** Black Potions - (Severus/Bellatrix)

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** _My Beta,_ **lady of scarlet**, _will be away from July 25th to the 8th of August. Sorry, folks, but that means my next chapter will be late. :(_

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**(34) HAPPY HOLIDAYS (Canada Day)**

The fireworks are like splashes of hope in the darkened sky, filling his heart with boyish wonderment before they flicker out like candle flames on birthday cakes. He's seen sixteen of those cakes now, the handmade icing gooey and smeared across the chocolate surface, the candles shoved into the layers like Muggle swords laid to rest in human bodies.

_I'm letting myself fall prey to childish foolishness,_ Severus thinks, his inner voice marred by sarcastic disgust. He chastises himself with every colour that blooms in the sky - red, white, green, yellow, orange, purple - because he is much too old for this silliness. But this day won't last forever, the fireworks - like his hope - won't retain what they evoke

One day Severus will truly be all grown-up and these summer vacations to Canada will end completely. The homemade cakes will hold no candles. He has one more year, at the very least, to be a child. Sixteen is still quite young.

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**(35) SORTING AU**

Severus Snape threw open the door to his dormitory and slunk inside, shivering from head to toe in his rainwater drenched robes. His first day of school and he was already late. How pathetic. He hadn't even been sorted with all the other children! Instead, he'd been escorted to the Headmaster's room and had the Sorting Hat jammed on his head. Gryffindor, it proclaimed. _(Wouldn't his dear Mother just be so proud when he told her?)_

Looking around the room, gazing at the red and gold curtains and sheets, he sighed in disgust. This was going to be a very long seven miserable years. He threw his trunk down by one of the bedsides and began to peel off his socks.

"Do you want the top or the bottom, mate?" asked one of the nameless roommates, flopping down beside him like a cannonball, brown eyes sparkling beneath a mop of black hair.

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**(36) LUST**

_I'm playing with fire,_ Severus thinks as Lucius tips his wine glass towards him in a playful acknowledgement. The pale grey eyes dance under the candlelight, smoldering like the last embers of a camp fire. It is all he can do to sit without squirming. To prevent himself from kissing those soft pink lips and taking that fair skinned face within his hands. He is surrounded by all the classy pure-blood ladies and gentlemen, Lucius across from him with his wife and son at his side and all he can manage to think about is Lucius Malfoy and his challenging eyes.

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**(37) SNAPE'S LIFE IN 150 WORDS**

Number 12 is utterly silent these days with Sirius's loud footfalls erased completely from the halls, never to return. Even the two remaining men who reside within the house don't make much noise - their heartbeats softer for his absence and their intakes of breath shallow as if constantly fighting back tears. This, of course, is their way of mourning in these post-war times. Locking themselves away within walls much thicker than stone.

Remus Lupin isn't really himself anymore, even more withdrawn after the murders of his wife and child, and Severus is nothing more than a ghost. He occasionally talks to one of the Order members and even chats with Harry over afternoon tea sometimes, but inside they are both broken, shattered glasses with jagged edges.

Yet they're alive and they suppose that's what matters. After all, that's what everyone keeps telling them. To be happy that they survived. To keep on living.

* * *

**(38) SNAPE AND SUMMER**

Lily Evans will no longer talk to him and Severus Snape is lost and lonely in these summer months without her. It almost feels as if he has become a jelly doughnut without the center, without the jam. He is missing the center of his life and there is a physical hole somewhere, he knows, where if people looked at him they might see his insides. It wasn't supposed to be this way. They are _supposed_ to be inseparable. They are _supposed_to be in it together.

Within the small thicket of trees by the river, the young man throws himself to the ground with violent abandon. She is _supposed _to be here with him, under the cool shade of the trees, dipping her feet into the water. She is _supposed _to be in love with him. But under these trees Severus finds no half-recalled childhood joy, no cherry-red haired girl with grass green eyes and a smile as warm as the summer's sun.

She is supposed to be here, but what matters to Severus is that she is not.

* * *

**(39) BELLATRIX**

They dance underneath the stars the day the Dark Lord vanishes. Her slender arms locked around his neck in a death grip and his heartbeat swift and terrified against her chest. It wouldn't be long, they figured, until the _others_ showed up. Not long until her husband called her home to mourn their Lord's death or Dumbledore whisked him away to Hogwarts, hiding him away within the safety of the castle walls. They didn't have long, they knew. Just these few precious moments.

* * *

**(40) SECOND HAND COMFORT**

The air inside the Snape's house on Spinner's End eternally smelt like Muggle cheap American cigarettes, a scent which one could sniff out in every single sofa seat and perhaps even in the very walls. It was his Father's habit, one he'd had since the tender age of twelve-years-old, and not even his darling wife had been able to break him of the addiction. Even now, after two decades of being dead, the house stank of musky cigarette smoke.

Which suited Severus just fine, actually, as the scent of tobacco had always been soothing to him. It reminded him of long evenings when he had sat with his Father outside on the warm cracked concrete steps, cig dangling off his lower lip and grey smoke tendrils floating up into the otherwise clear air. With the scent of cigarettes nearby, Severus always felt the comforting presence of his Father at his side.

* * *

**(41) THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE STARS**

Severus flung himself up onto the rooftop of Malfoy Manor with reckless abandon, a large drinking mug of scalding hot tea in one hand as he walked swiftly across the slanted ground to his old pure-blood friend. Lucius' chuckle, soft and slow, floated to his ears.

Severus curiously cast him a glance and followed his grey eyes out to where they drifted along the lawn. Draco, accompanied by the other older Malfoy children and cousins, dashed across the grass with his hands outstretched like a bear as he chased a group of laughing witch and wizard children not yet old enough to attend Hogwarts.

From where they sat on the rooftop it was a delightful picture, one that any artist would have painted with adoration. It was a cool twilight evening, the sun bathing the kids' winsome faces in golden light, their excited eyes gleaming like flashing stars.

The two of them, half-blood and pure-blood, were united in this moment of bliss.

* * *

**(42) MARRY ME**

It is single-handedly the most terrifying/wonderful moment of Severus's entire life as, within the Muggle restaurant, he slides out of his seat and slowly descends to one knee. She looks at him, green eyes wide and understanding, lips formed in the perfect shape of an "O", hair gleaming with golden streaks underneath the yellow candlelight.

"Will you marry me, Lily Evans?" he asks, voice trembling half way through the third word so that the sentence becomes the high pitched squeak of a mouse.

For a few seconds there is a horrible silence between them, Severus waiting for the answer and she unable to form the words that are needed. But finally, she answers with no more than a whispered breath.

"_Yes."_

* * *

**(43) FORGOTTEN MEMORY**

Like most traumatized young children, five-year-old Severus pushes the memory out of his head, covering up the images by looking into the bright lights and repeating _it's not real _inside his head. Soon, the memory of the event is all but erased from his mind. Like a pencil mark disappearing off a snowy white paper. Gone.

Only decades later when he is a man will he remember his Mother's rage-filled eyes, her hands wrapped around the cool metal of the family gun and his Father on the ground at her feet. Begging. A gun shot. No more noise.

Her hands aimed the gun, but love pulled the trigger.

* * *

**(44) PROMISES**

An accused mass murder, a husband and wife and all but one of their children, a drunken thief, a werewolf, a Death Eater turned spy, a couple of Aurors, some Muggle-borns, a few half-bloods and even a couple people from the pure-blood families. Plus, the supposed greatest wizard of all time, Albus Dumbledore.

Those, Severus thinks, are the only things which are standing between Lily's son and sure death at the hand of the Dark Lord and his merry followers. An Order of mismatched human beings which under any other circumstances would never have known of each other's existence, let alone been united as tightly as a family. The thought terrifies him.

Is there actually anything he can do to protect the boy?

* * *

**_"Reviews are the only payment FanFiction authors receive. Even if it's just a word or two, leaving a review lets me know you've passed this way."_**

**Revisions:** 1.28.2012.

(1) "addition" to "addiction" in drabble 40. Thanks to Emily Mae.


	5. Moments 45 To 55

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

* * *

**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 45 - 55

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

**SHIP(s):** Always - (Severus Snape/Lily Evans) **/** Dungeon and Domination - (Lucius/Severus) **/ **Master and Wolf - (Severus/Remus)

* * *

**(45) SNAPE THE DEATH EATER**

He gazed in shocked horror at the tiny white face and the unblinking eyes and couldn't pull himself away from their blankness, their once sparkling depths shut off like a light bulb turned off by a switch. He'd seen this before, of course, the Muggle hunt finished with the bodies left to rot like garbage on the Malfoy's marble floor... yet never had he seen the death of someone so young. So innocent. The pool of blood beneath the child has dyed her pretty blond locks red, and her eyes are green, lifeless.

* * *

**(46) BAH HUMBUG**

Christmas had arrived at Hogwarts in the fashion of several feet of powder white snow and the wind-chilled faces of children who huddled in the corridors. Evergreen trees, strung with sparkling icicles and flaming orange candles, appeared throughout the Great Hall next to large groups of mistletoe and holly. Golden bubbles, which burnt just as bright as Muggle Christmas lights, floated lazily throughout the castle.

Most of the students began to make their way clamourously into Thresil, pulled wagons and, standing on the sidelines with those who would be staying behind, the Professors waved them goodbye. Wishing them "happy holidays!" and shouting out warnings (pleas, more like) to "be safe!" while the students called out their own farewells of "happy Christmas, Professor!" and "see you soon!"

"Bah humbug," Severus replies.

* * *

**(47) IN BLOOM**

Ronald Weasley is nothing but a messy mop of flaming red hair and pale freckles after his near experience with death as he lays in the hospital wing. The faces of staff members and students loom around him like flickering lights - expressions changing from the shocked eyes of The Chosen One to the utter blankness of Severus Snape's. The boy mutters something, incoherently, in his sleep. Everyone moves closer.

"Her-mi-one. Hermione."

For a fleeting instant the blankness of Severus's face is transformed into tenderness. Love has begun to grow inside this boy's heart, he knows, like a flame. A fire which has spread through his aching limbs and taken root within his heart. A flower in bloom.

* * *

**(48) SNAPE AND PORTRAITS**

After he becomes Headmaster, Severus Snape isn't able to find a moment of peace within the walls of Hogwarts. It's almost as if the very air swirling against the stones is the whispering voices of ghosts and the creaks in the moving stairs the accusations of a castle which cannot form its pain in the human tongue. Everyone in the school is mourning the death of the Greatest Wizard - from the new Headmaster down to the portraits who eye him with loathing and disgust as he passes through the hallways. In their dull eyes and painted mouths he finds the words they will not speak: _You murdered Albus Dumbledore_.

* * *

**(49) ST MUNGO'S HOSPITAL FOR MAGICAL MALADIES AND INJURIES**

"Remus Lupin's room, please," Severus requests.

He taps his fingers idly on the pale white wood of the welcomewitch's desk, a tight ball of nervousness bouncing around in the pit of his stomach. The witch in question just gives him a sharp look - eyes blazing and lips mashing together - as she jerks her hand impenitently to the large sign which reads _FLOOR GUIDE _in giant red letters.

"Creature-Induced Injures. First floor. Dai Llewellyn ward," she snaps, sounding as if every person who enters the place ignores the sign and simply demands the whereabouts of their loved ones without thinking.

* * *

**(50) FIRST LOVE**

Lily and Severus laughed together for the first time in months, their voices now awkward and nervous. All traces of childhood erased. The promise of adulthood had begun to bloom inside of them and when they chanced to peek at each other they found that they no longer recognized each other. Both of them had changed drastically in the year in which they had been so apart. Both of them had grown into something more than a childhood friend.

Yet somehow when their eyes met, despite their numerous differences, something more than adulthood bloomed within them. Something warm and fuzzy and oh so insecure. First love.

* * *

**(51) FAMILY GATHERINGS**

Severus hates them with every ounce of his being, with every single iota of emotion that he can possibly muster. Every last one of them. From his drunken Mama to his raging Father, from his straight-laced uncles to his cold eyed aunts,down to his tiny dimpled faced three-year-old cousins. He tries not to, of course. He _tries _to smile when he invites them through the door, he _tries _to be a gentleman when he asks for their coats and he_tries _to be polite when he's spoken to. But he hates them; every last one, and staring into his reflection off the back of a silver spoon as they all gather round for supper he wonders why - if he hates them so much - he invites them over every year.

* * *

**(52) CHARITY**

"Are we allowed to stay here?" asks the boy.

He is only a seven-year-old, dressed up in his Father's baggy sweater which drapes around his shoulders like a blanket and swirls around his naked ankles like a playful kitten. As he looks up at the old man, he twirls one long strand of dirty black hair around his little finger and waits for an answer, his dark eyes wide with curiously. Innocent curiosity, at that. After all, he is only a child. Only an innocent, thrown into a world of cruelty.

"Surely, you know it is so, young man," replies the old man. "No one is turned away from our doors. Welcome to _St. Monica _church."

* * *

**(53) DELIRIUM (based off the movie **_**Delirious**_**)**

Butter yellow candlelight awakened Severus as it flickered upon his face, dancing across his eyelids suchlike the morning sunlight which couldn't have reached him in his dormitory in the dungeon. _Lucius'_dormitory, actually. His bed, too. Severus stretched, rolling his shoulders and lifting his arms with a lazy smile, feeling every ache from the night of passionate lovemaking.

"Why, good morning, Sev," twelve-year-old Regulus laughed, confused. "What are you doing in the Head Boy's bed?"

"Um, I-I-I, ah, well ..." Severus fumbled through his mind, searching for an answer to that question which would not get Lucius and himself killed at the hands of their peers. "I have nightmares. Horrible nightmares. Lucius lets me stay with him sometimes."

* * *

**(54) POTIONS BREWING**

As the aroma of Muggle chemicals swirls upwards Severus inhales it in gulps, ignoring all advice his Muggle teachers told him about using his hands to bring the smell to his nose for safety. He _supposes _it'd be a worthless precaution anyway, as it's Amortentia that he's sniffing. Brewed with tender care with the best ingredients he could afford and left to shimmer under the candlelight with its purple-white sheen, filling up the dungeons so that the children and teachers all stop and sniff the air with happy smiles and dancing eyes. To him, everything smells like the faint scent of bleach the Evanses used to clean their house with and those little "wet towel" napkins which his Mother always kept on hand.

* * *

**(55) WORKING CLASS MAN**

Severus finds them all so nauseating and inferior that he wants to sneer at them as they wave from atop their high horses and look down at him. The Purebloods act like royalty, Kings and Queens arranging marriages between Princes and Princesses. Ignoring the peasants who live under their rule as the real world slowly destroys itself. It doesn't matter, though, because if they look away everything will be perfectly fine. It'll all disappear!

They turn their gazes from the Muggleborns and the Half-bloods as their pure little world becomes nothing but a fantasy and they blame them for their own mistakes because they are oh so very perfect and great that it cannot possibly ever be them that is at fault.

And he sneers and mocks them all silently from the sidelines, content in the filth that runs through his dirty veins. He's no blueblood. He's proud of that fact, ridiculously proud of it, in fact. He enjoys the danger and the stains of oil and blood on his callused hands. He's a working class man, content to cause revolutions and watch it all go up in flames.

* * *

**_"Reviews are the only payment FanFiction authors receive. Even if it's just a word or two, leaving a review lets me know you've passed this way."_**

**Revisions:** 1.28.2012.

(1) In drabble 46: "power white snow" edited to "powder white snow". Thanks to Emily Mae.


	6. Moments 56 To 66

**DISCLAIMER**:_Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc., are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_**.**

**

* * *

  
**

**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 56-66

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

**SHIP(s):** Always -(Severus Snape/Lily Evans) **/** Silver and Steel - (Severus/James)

* * *

**(56) BACK TO SCHOOL**

There is a spill of cherry red hair which falls with liquid grace down the back of a girl's robes as she hops playfully off the train, her little Mary Jane's scuffing on the gravel.

Severus squeezes his eyes shut, the burst of colour setting flames inside his eyeballs. Lily is not here, he knows, because he has taken all the precautions he can take for not seeing her before he must. He is on a different platform than her, boarding the train hours before she will. That is not _**Lily**_ jumping off the train to give her parents a kiss goodbye and _(as much as he loathes to admit it)_ red hair colour isn't specifically assigned to her.

* * *

**(57) CORNERED WITHOUT REFUSAL**

Severus held the drooling blond-haired two-year-old at arm's length and looked into his big blue eyes. Just how had he gotten himself saddled with the baby "dragon"? Well, it had begun like any other usual night. Lounging around in the Malfoy parlours, sipping some sort of thick cream coloured liquid from a sparkling crystal glass and wondering what in the hell it was while he argued passionately with Lucius. Same old same old, really ...until they started talking about children; how much of hassle they can be on new parents when there was such a lack of people the pure-bloods would entrust their precious family jewels to.

* * *

**(58) FAIRYTALES**

"Poppa?"

The little boy hovered like a bumblebee by the _Lazyboy_ armchair, his plump hand reaching outwards and clutching at the fabric of the elderly man's sleeves. Big eyes, the exact same colour of his dead grandmother's, look up at Severus in adoring wonder. There's an ache in his heart when he sees that look, almost as if the boy's innocent hand has come out to squeeze the very heart within his chest. He tries to shake the feeling away _(after all, it's not his young eyes that truly cause the pain, rather it's the spring green splash of colour.)_ but it remains ever present. Severus misses Lily so, even after all these years.

"Poppa?" Another slight tug at his shirtsleeve, this time more demanding and impatient than the last. "Poppa, it's almost bedtime. You've got to tell me."

The words _a story _go unsaid because they are foolish and quite unnecessary. For as long as Albus Severus Potter has existed, Severus Snape has been telling him stories before sweeping him up into his slender arms and carting him off to the safety of his bedroom. Mostly, the stories are about a lovely village woman named Lily who falls in love with the not-so-handsome Prince Charming. They've covered the basics of fairytales, Severus knows, but they've never covered the truth.

* * *

**(59) GARDENING**

Severus ambled his way down to the Greenhouse where Professor Sprout was kneeling in the soft brown dirt, a smile blooming on her lips and a sparkle playing in her eyes as he waved to her. He shook his head, baffled at her attitude. They had all been mother hen-ing him since he came back. Just yesterday Sprout had suggest to him, after Poppy had finally decided _(read, been forced into deciding by the Headmistress) _that he could be let out of the Hospital Wing, that he might want to join her in her garden. He needed something to do that would be relaxing, all three women had said, so that the "monstrous snakebite" would heal up nice and good and he could go back to being a "wonderful Potions Master".

* * *

**(60) NEVER-NEVER LAND**

He is here again, in the shady thicket of sprawling green trees, the twinkling sunlight falling through the rustling canopy with the chilly river glinting like flowing diamonds as he dips his fingertips into its gentle current. Here again in this place when he has promised himself over and over and over again for the last three years that he would not return. Yet the frank truth is that even if he had made the Unbreakable Vow, swearing on his life to never see this place again, he would have returned to it. Even if only to die.

The place held too much for him - all the memories and the emotions - for him to just have abandoned it. He thinks he should abandon it, of course. He is seventeen now, almost a full grown wizard _(a bitter old man) _and it's very pathetic for him to keep visiting this place as if he were visiting his mistress. This is Severus Snape's guilty pleasure however, this unchanging utopia, because within it he does not have to grow up.

* * *

**(61) SILENT WORDS**

_I'm losing you, _Severus screams silently.

He's watching the Perfect Ones laugh within the sunlit courtyard from where he sits in the shadows. He's trying not to think on this, this devastating fear that he is losing his beloved, despite the soft kisses and tender caresses they share within the shady twilight where the prying eyes of the other students cannot watch them.

James, with smooth hands running through his raven hair like a Quill through an ink spill, does not even acknowledge Severus' ridiculous thoughts.

It's cowardly to admit you're afraid of her, he says between honey tasting kisses, with a twinkle in his chocolate eyes which melts the Slytherin into warm puddles. I don't even like her, he protests, slipping his arms around Severus's slender waist and pulling him closer. It's your eyes that I look for in the crowd, Severus, he admits.

_Then why don't you ever look at me when you're with them? _Severus wonders.

* * *

**(62) SNAPE LAUGHS**

"I am not a coward," Severus whispers softly, his voice choked with thick tears. He pushes himself to his feet and laughs, a full throated bray of thunderous sound, because it just all seems so absurd. Even while the flesh of his face is swelling up with new bruises, there is a hot edge of anger to his voice, a glint of rebelliousness in his black eyes. The sin and shame of pride. The thoughts unspoken but still very clear in the silence. _I am not a coward ...and you, my Father, are nothing but one. Hit me again. Does it make you feel brave?_

_

* * *

  
_

**(63) SNAPE, THE FIFTH MARAUDER**

The Gryffindor Common Room was almost empty by midnight on Sunday, filled with a tranquil hush brought on by the crackling fire. All was peaceful, the silence only broken occasionally by the murmurs of five young wizards who didn't really feel the need to communicate in words. The atmosphere within the room was set to contentment, built up by the close friendships they had created and every one of them could feel the closeness.

They acknowledged and felt it in different ways: Remus on the sofa couch with a tattered book in hand, James by the frost-covered window daydreaming about Quidditch, Peter who lay half asleep with the flame light dancing over his face, right down to Severus and Sirius who sat in the soft velvet seats closet to the fire, drinking Butterbeer together over soft laughter.

* * *

**(64) THE BOY WHO LIVED**

Severus crouched in the bushes, gazing at the icy pond where his two former students had just disappeared, placing his hands carefully over his lips as he fought back a scream. Panic whirled inside his head like little mosquitoes sucking at his doubts. He wondered, morbidly, if he had overestimated the Boy Who Lived and his Faithful Sidekick.

He began to move backwards, taking his leave of the place, yet kept his eyes riveted to the pond. Waiting for some sign of life. Something. Anything. Like a flash of flaming red hair immerging within the whiteness, the sound of coughing from lungs which were desperate to breathe. He gazed upwards, thankful.

* * *

**(65) .... "TO BEWITCH THE MIND"....**

Severus slept deeply and when he dreamed, which was only occasionally, he dreamed that he sat within a small park where he used to play as a child. The bright noonday sunshine was like yellow paint dripping down from the sky onto the world, the clouds large globs of cotton candy, the swings now large wild birds on which he could ride. He kicked his feet out and raised his hands high above his head as if he could reach towards the Heavens and ensure sweet pleasure and became gobsmacked when he realized that his limbs were no longer the limbs of a man. Behind him, the delighted shriek of a little child zoomed like helium into the air and others followed its path as if to create a melody. This was childhood relived, the perfect bewitchment of the mind.

* * *

**(66) UNDER THE INFLUENCE**

Severus raised the bottle up with his trembling hands and swallowed the rest of the liquid, a grimace blooming across his face. Firewhiskey was a vile concoction. It honestly made him feel as if flames were licking at his insides, dancing behind the pupils of his eyeballs and sliding down from his twitching throat to his shaking thighs to create a raging inferno within his body. Yet somehow the memories still burnt more. They filled up his mind and ate away at his thoughts, reducing everything inside of him to a pile of ashes.

Was there _**nothing**_ that could help him forget?


	7. Moments 67 To 77

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

* * *

**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 67 - 77

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** _Posted four days early because I don't think I'll be around to put it up on the usual date. Enjoy! Please review. _

**_

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**(67) BEHIND BLUE EYES (song by The Who)**

Under the buttery yellow illumination of the candlelight, Peter Pettigrew's eyes are an unusually startling shade of light blue. Kind of like watercolour paint, Severus thinks, which has been mixed up with way too much water and not nearly enough paint. It actually dazzles him a little. Makes him gaze into the other man's eyes in amazed wonderment.

He has never regarded Peter as a living human, something with the ability to talk and breathe and feel, until he meets his eyes. Beautiful eyes. Melancholy orbs of shimmering liquid with an unimaginable depth of shame and regret.

Somehow, they seem to be silently weeping without tears.

* * *

**(68) DEATH**

Severus made his way into the thicket of trees, crossing the park and staring longingly at the swings. Never again would he sit upon them. Severus is a spy, a man playing with death and shadows, gathering information from both sides with no seeming alliance. He had learnt secrets about the darkest types of magic, gotten his best friend killed, lied to his Lord and his Headmaster to try and escape his fate. For that, he had to die. And his murderers were standing there, within the trees, waiting for him. Death caught up to him at last.

* * *

**(69) GUIDE THEM WELL (Snape during GOF)**

After the Dark Lord returns, Severus cannot stop thinking about how easy it all was for him, for all the others. Every one of the old Death Eaters had joined together to form a group for just one reason. A reason based on the need to belong, to be accepted, to be needed and loved. Emotions which surely filled every young witch or wizard within the school of Hogwarts. Worry and love for those very students filled him to the brim.

Would he be able to save the students of Hogwarts from the darkness that he knew to lurk in the shadows, the thing which could stain their youthful hands with blood and tear their souls so badly that life was like a permanent nightmare? Could he reach out and take their hands in his own before it was all too late?

* * *

**(70) HE WAS THERE**

When he wakes up shaking, in the middle of the night, Severus can hardly remember much of what he dreamed. It's almost as if he's watching an old movie, the film having been eaten away in places as it plays within his head. Just little snippets of memory remain:

The shouts of panic ringing throughout the house, the thud of a body against the floorboards, the crying of an infant left unattended and the voice of his long lost best friend begging for her son's life. Pleading not for herself but for her child.

He makes it his duty to protect Harry James Potter from that moment on.

* * *

**(71) IF SEVERUS WAS A WEREWOLF**

The only thing Severus Snape remembers about his first Full Moon is the hunger. The all consuming gnawing in his gut that seemed to ache in his every limb, the need for flesh eating away at his human thoughts. That night he and Remus Lupin broke away from the cabin and hunted down the wizards and witches of Hogsmeade without need of instruction, their instincts taking over as they tore apart the bodies of people they had known for years. Men, women, children. Friends, girlfriends, family.

It didn't matter now that they were nothing more than food.

* * *

**(72) LACKING**

Severus believes that human beings are designed for survival. That is to say, he thinks that most humans are born with the keen ability to learn and that they come equipped with the limbs, muscles and organs they will need in later adult life. Sometimes, however, the person within the design is so flawed that the human design is inadequate for their personal survival.

Even after everything he has done, even after everything that he has set in motion, he has still not learnt from his mistakes. He misses Lily horridly, of course, yet he misses her only out of selfish need. Obsessive love. There is no one else to care for him, no one else to understand him. And so Severus mourns but cannot repent.

He lacks the ability to grasp what he has done wrong and thus he lacks the ability to learn.

* * *

**(73) LIBRARY**

The townies have taken to calling it _The Labyrinth_.

It's a fitting name really, because here, amid twisting hallways where bookshelves of _K _lead someone directly into the hall of _Q_, little Severus has finally found a decent shelter from his dreadful home life. It becomes his safe house of sorts; a mansion filled with all the glorious treasures and knowledgeable thoughts he can ever hope to one day possess.

_The Labyrinth_, not a place where the Minotaur lives but rather an escape from the beast itself; the beast that he learned about within these walls. He's never lost here in the maze of yellowed pages and large words. Quite the contrary. For once in his life, he has found a home. A place where he is not just accepted as a piece of everyday life which needs to be tolerated and never heard but accepted as something that needs to be cuddled and given real love. He is showered with attention by anyone who comes through the double-doors.

It's here, while browsing in the hall of _K _with all its splendid bookshelves, that he develops a strange taste for beautiful words. Severus is only five when the silver-haired old man who smells of watermelons and dish soap calls him a whippersnapper and picks him up under the armpits, demanding to know if he's ever read the works of Keats. John Keats, whose "name was writ in water", who speaks as brilliantly as the sun shines.

"_Into a Delphic Labyrinth - I would fain," _Keats once wrote and never in all his life would Severus ever forget that line.

* * *

**(74) SNAPE, THE ANIMAGUS**

Severus slips human into crow, his dark eyes flashing like blackened jewels upon the faces of Minerva and Potter. On his new shiny wings he takes flight and soars out of the cage he has lived in for the past sixteen years, hoping that the Death Eaters and the Hogwarts staff with turn their eyes away from him and raise their gazes onto something greater.

It's all hopeless, of course. His brothers and sisters are scavengers, waiting for the moment when their masters give them orders. It's only a small matter of time now before either group drags him back to their base and clips his wings, leaving him shivering on the cold floor as he dies or gets tortured.

* * *

**(75) SNAPE, THE DEATH EATER**

The truth is that Severus became one of the Death Eaters because it made him feel human, like he was having a near-life experience. For once in his life he had found a place where he _belonged _with people who actually _accepted _him._Understood_ him.

Severus had never wanted to be the one that stood out, the one everyone noticed, the outcast everyone stared at. All his life he had thought that he'd give up his very soul just to be like everyone else. That was his biggest dream ...the one thing he could never have. And then he had his dream handed to him in the form of a lifetime of service.

He couldn't refuse.

* * *

**(76) SNAPE'S HANDS**

_This isn't right, _Severus thinks, twiddling an engraved Malfoy pen between his slender fingers. Smooth fingers and soft skin; hands without a callous or a blister in sight. When he looks down at them, eyes roaming over the glittering gold rings and manicured nails Lucius insisted on if he was going to dine with pure-bloods, he realizes they aren't his. Not Severus Snape's, anyway. Those hands should be covered by little cuts, knuckles raw and bruised, nails snagged and chewed in nervous anticipation as he brews another illegal potion.

We sacrifice so much of ourselves for friendship.

* * *

**(77) TEST SCORE**

Severus sits by himself underneath the blistering June sunshine, surrounded by the screaming voices of the other students as they pour like ants from the Great Hall after finishing their examinations, unable to enjoy their childish joy. Somehow he is still very much alone with all of them there. Even at Hogwarts, Severus is terrified of what will come when he goes home with a wrong answer, still scared of another beating from his father or another bloody scolding from his mother. At fifteen, the young wizard doesn't think he'll be able to take two more years of this.


	8. Moments 78 To 88

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

* * *

**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moments 78-88

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon/Canon

**SHIP(s):** Always - (Severus Snape/Lily Evans)** /**Silver and Steel - (Severus/James)** /** Love Potion** -** (Severus/Cho)

**

* * *

**

**(78) ALWAYS**

The problem with Lily's death is that he doesn't know how to get away from it. Severus's life, his reason for taking breath and growing up to become a great wizard, is gone and he realizes that it has _always _been about Lily Evans. From the childhood "I love you" moments to the "I wish I hadn't said that" moments, Lily had always been the reason and the rhyme, the same old song and dance in a world that was crumbling around him.

"Always," Severus says out loud, and he feels as if he has just been hollowed out with a spoon. Always is a very long time.

* * *

**(79) SNAPE AND SEX**

She presses her lips to his one day while they are in his classroom, leaning all her weight against him as she stands on tip-toe and trails her painted fingernails down his cheek, and he forgets everything. Just forgets.

It doesn't occur to him that she is only fourteen, that she should be working on her Charms homework right now, that she has a date with the so-called amazing Cedric Diggory in nearly an hour. He forgets that she is a student, that this is disgusting, that this is so very _wrong_.

Because for the moment a few seconds of the illusion of love are truly worth it. Because one night of foolish passion is better than a thousand nights of loneliness. Because Severus is tired of being alone and, in the moment that it happens, it isn't anything but _right_.

* * *

**(80) DRACO MALFOY **

"_What does it matter?" said Malfoy. "Defense Against the Dark Arts - it's all just a joke, isn't it, an act? Like any of us need protecting against the Dark Arts __-__-" _

Severus winces at the words, the foolhardy attitude, because he sees too much of his younger self in the Malfoy heir. He has known Draco since he was nothing more than a newborn child in the cradle, has watched the boy take his first ride on a broomstick and he had witnessed the moment when the Sorting Hat placed Draco in Slytherin. Severus has had the title of "Uncle" outside of the school walls and been this boy's Head of House for six years.

So how is it that he has missed so much? How is it that he missed the most critical fact, that this boy--this boy he has known for sixteen years--is no longer a boy at all? When had Draco become a man without his realizing it?

* * *

**(81) THE WAND CHOOSES **

Severus is eight-years-old the first time he picks up his mother's wand. He is eight-years-old the last time he picks up anybody else's wand. Bad experiences will do that to people.

His mother, uncharacteristically, had left her wand on the kitchen countertop when a Muggle man had called to ask her out and she had dashed upstairs, leaving the wand behind like a woman forgetting her diamond ring in the gutter. Careless. Reckless.

Wonderful.

He walks up to it with nervousness, eyeing it as if he thinks it may bite. Never--not even once--in his life has he seen a witch or wizard leave their wands behind and the truth is that he doesn't have a clue as of what to do. How does he hold it? What does he do with it? He only knows a little verbal magic, has only been able to do a couple real spells that were not truly accidents.

Severus reaches out, swift as a mouse, snatching the wand up sideways in the palm of his hands. It only takes a few seconds before his arms go numb and he begins to cry. The tears come down from his eyes before he even realizes they are there and they are uncontrollable.

What he has done is wrong, he knows, because the wand chooses the person, the person does not choose the wand. He sets the wand back on the countertop and decides that he can wait another three years.

**

* * *

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(82) HALLOWEEN HEART STOPPER

In one glorious instant Severus's destiny was decided and the world came to a halt. The Earth stopped spinning and remade itself just for him. Fate was like a child playing with putty, mashing random pieces together, attaching the half-blood and the Muggle-born together. Adults call it "love at first sight" and Severus learns why at eight-years-old.

Lily is like a ray of sunshine in her witch costume, her face painted green with a large brown mole glued to her chin, her witch's hat lopsided and covered in fake cobwebs with plastic spiders dangling from the white cotton. She is holding her wand--a curved stick she had found on her lawn at the last moment--and waving it around in large circles above her head with shouts of "Abracadabra!"

Severus falls in love right then and there, watching the golden and orange winged butterflies she has created drift off into the air.

* * *

**(83) MISTLETOE**

Severus kisses him, wrapping his slender fingers into his messy black hair and pressing their lips together. James tastes of melted chocolate, fresh mint candies from Honeyducks, and his lips are frozen like icicles underneath the warmth of his own but Severus knows that this is worth it. It doesn't matter if Sirius Black is glaring at them or if Lily has been stunned into silence or if the whole world is watching them from within their school desks.

James pulls away enough to give him a puzzling look.

"Mistletoe," Severus informs him, pointing upwards matter-of-factly to where a sprig has been placed over the classroom doorway, and smiles.

* * *

**(84) PRECISLEY HER EYES**

There was no urgency, there was no ticking clock. One single fact remained and could not be questioned. The boy, Harry James Potter, would be at Hogwarts for seven years. Severus would have to look at the boy at some point in time and there could be no stopping it. And so, swallowing his fear, Severus jerked his head up, looking right past Quirrell who was trying to make conversation with him, and caught the Potter boy's eyes for one sharp second.

Dumbledore had not lied to him. Harry Potter did have Lily's eyes.

Precisely her eyes.

* * *

**(85-86-87-88) THE GAMBLER (song by Kenney Rogers) **

_**(know when to hold em') **_

Thirteen-year-old Regulus Black is crying, loud hiccupping sobs, when Severus finds him in the Slytherin Common Room just before the dawn. He's trying to sneak out to go and visit Lily before classes start but something keeps him rooted to where he stands, watching the pure-blood weep with childish abandon, unaware that anyone is watching him.

Severus has never been friends with the youngest Black, has never actually even spoken more than a usual "good morning" or "your brother is a toerag" to him but for some reason he cannot leave him all alone here. Something in those sobs reminds him so much of himself that he moves forwards, unaware of what he is doing, and wraps his arms around the boy.

_**(know when to fold em') **_

"_Look ...at....me....." _

This is Severus Snape's dying wish, these are his very last words and this is his last moment in what people call life. There is nothing that he can do for them--his students, his staff, his brothers and sisters from the Order and the Death Eaters alike--and it's time to stop playing his cards of Dumbledore Spy and Head Death Eater at last. Severus knows he cannot win this battle because it isn't his fight anymore.

The hand holding Potter's slips to the floor and, although he is almost dead, Severus can still imagine the invisible cards of his hand scattering across the ground.

_**(know when to walk away) **_

"It's over, Severus," Remus says.

He wants to throw something at the werewolf, something that will scald his insides and his flesh like an insult of a cup of Wolfsbane potion, but Severus has neither of those things for this man. He looks up at Remus with wounded eyes and opens his mouth, feeling the words roll along the tip of his tongue but instead he stands in silence.

Remus Lupin is leaving him for Sirius Black once more--just like he had back in the school days--and this time Severus will not be made a fool of. This time he will not beg, he will not cry. He walks to the doorway and leaves.

There are no words for this.

_**(know when to run) **_

He catches one last glimpse of Hogwarts from the corner of his eye as he runs away and he stops for a second. Just stops. With the infernal Hippogriff slashing at his arms and head and the screams of students filling the air, with Potter lying broken on the ground like some forgotten doll and the Death Eater's mark blazing in the sky like some poisonous sun, Severus catches a glimpse of Hogwarts and stops.

The truth is, Severus Snape has been stopped by a wave of emotion. His thin chest has swollen up with pain/excitement/terror/awe/satisfaction like it hasn't done since he was eleven years old, catching his first sight of Hogwarts as he drifted across a freezing river on the first of September, the day when his destiny began.

So Severus stops. He is still not ready to say goodbye.


	9. Moments 89 To 99

**DISCLAIMER: **_Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, __etc.__ are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended._

_

* * *

  
_

**CHAPTER TITLE: **Moments 89 To 99

**AUTHOR: **Relala

**BETA: **lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Fanon

**SHIP:** Always - (Severus Snape/Lily Evans)

* * *

**(89) HELL IS FOR CHILDREN (song by Pat Benatar)**

The tragedy is that Severus loves him, loves him with the warmth of the rising sun floating into the blue-grey sky, spreading across every inch of land until its warmth touches every bit of the Earth with its love. Father smiles and the little boy's eyes light with love, roaming over the hills of his bushy eyebrows and the valleys of deep wrinkles by his rough lips.

This man is Severus's sun, the object of his affection that his heart orbits around. This man is his _everything_. So when people ask after the bruises he always has, the yellowish-black splotches along his arms and on his sides, he says nothing.

Love is painful, he knows, and he sees nothing wrong with this.

* * *

**(90) MUGGLE BOOKS**

Muggle books are Severus Snape's dirty little secret. He won't chance to be seen by one of his Muggle-born students in a bookshop in some Muggle city or, even worse, seen by one of the pure-bloods on the rare moments that they have to go into Muggle London.

So always, he does it in secret, slipping into his "normal" clothes--jeans to go over his legs and a hoodie to cover his hair--to go to some Muggle mall to buy his books.

* * *

**(91) MINERVA McGONAGALL**

On his second day of school Severus is caught by Professor McGonagall trying to sneak into the Gryffindor Tower to talk with Lily Evans. She walks up behind him, looming over the boy like the shadow of the castle eclipsing the lake and grabs him under the armpits, hauling him to her office.

It's the most terrifying thing of his young life, when he looks back on it. The angry woman bearing down upon him with her wand in her hand and a scowl that looked more like the snarl of a rabid beast than anything. Not even his father had ever scared him that badly and, trembling in one of the student desks like an aspen, he can do nothing more than gap at her with wide-eyed terror.

He never tries to get into the Gryffindor Tower ever again.

* * *

**(92) THE KEEPSAKE**

Severus keeps the letter inside his robes, unwilling to part with it for even a moment.

He folds it neatly and places it gently into the pocket by his heart, feeling lightheaded and weak kneed to have her so close to him after such a long absence of her presence. Sometimes he even imagines that the ink, her sweet words and her beautiful essence, is sinking into his skin. Her "_lots of love" _burning at his flesh and making a hole inside of him which hollows him out and leaves him empty with loneliness.

* * *

**(93) NO SURPRISE (song by Theory Of A Deadman)**

She is cheating on him with James Potter and he knows it. He's known about it for months, in fact, because he can read Lily as if her actions were the words in a book. She has written paragraphs for him, telling him exactly what she is doing, although she does not seem to know it.

Severus knows that something is wrong in the way that Lily hugs him. _(I don't want to touch you after touching him.) _He knows it by the way her green eyes will not look at him for more than seconds. _(I can't stand to look into your eyes like I look into his.) _He knows by the way that her lips falter under his. _(I imagine his lips when you kiss me.)_

So when she comes to him, saying that they need to talk, it comes as no surprise. She looks at him with the wounded look of a deer and he already knows what she will say. _(I'm not in love with you.)_

_

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_

**(94) PHOTOGRAPH**

When Severus finds it at the bottom of his dresser drawer on day at Spinner's End he's not sure whether he wants to cry or laugh. He has lost a lot to Lily Evans, given a lot to the red-haired girl with her sparkling green eyes, but when he looks at this old photo he cannot regret having known her. He cannot regret that even in her grave she has his heart.

They are eight-years-old in this picture, the two of them having just enjoyed a day at the beach. They are wet and covered in thin towels, their hair plastered onto their grinning faces. Lily is missing one of her teeth. Severus is laughing at her as she smiles at the camera.

Almost two decades later, he is still laughing at her for it.

* * *

**(95) NOT SO MERRY CHRISTMAS**

It's cold on Christmas night and there is no one but him in the graveyard, no one else foolish enough to be mourning their loved ones in the cold wind that bit at flesh and burnt the backs of one's eyes.

There is only him, surrounded by the gravestones of the dead as he reads to his dead childhood best friend, leaving her favourite flowers and her favourite chocolates at the place where she rests beneath the dirt.

"Merry Christmas to all," Severus reads into the silent night. "And to all a good night."

* * *

**(96) STRANGULATION**

"What do you see in him, Sev?" Lily demands. "He's creepy! D'you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?"

"It was nothing," Severus shoots back. "It was a laugh, that's all--"

"It was Dark Magic, and if you think that's funny--"

"What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?" Severus snarls, the tone of his voice coming out as nothing more than a growl.

He's so tired of this, so weary of defending every single choice that he makes to her, waiting for Lily's seal of approval so he can so much as take a walk. There was a time in his life when he loved her, a time when she was his whole world, but that time is long since past.

Love, he thinks, isn't supposed to be strangulation by chains.

* * *

**(97) TEACHER**

It's Severus's Mother who instils in him the knowledge of potions, teaching him all he ever needed to know before he so much as showed his first sign of magic.

"I will teach you of the most glorious beauty I have ever beheld. I will teach you the subtle sweetness that buttercups create when added with Amortentia, the science of heather and jasmine turned to liquid luck in your veins," she began.

"I will show you the exact art of mixing rosemary and the forget-me-not flower together to create the most powerful memory draught known to any witch or wizard. I will teach you the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with itsshimmering fumes."

Many long years later, as a Professor at Hogwarts, school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Severus will remember his Mother's words and continue to teach her lessons to every single student who walks through his doors.

* * *

**(98) WHAT'S IN A NAME**

Severus still calls him "Potter" after all these years, even after the man is long dead and buried beneath the ground and his son is living within the same dormitories that he once lived in himself. He's still "Potter" because when Severus tries to say the name--Potter's name--the J rolls and tumbles on his tongue like ash. It burns Severus's mouth like he has swallowed a mouthful of scalding tea and it hurts his pride like a sword in the gut.

Severus will never be able to speak the name of the older Potter, the one that stole his Lily away, even when he begins to call another boy by the name. The Boy Who Lived is now "Potter" but, for him, it really makes no difference. To look at the new boy causes the same pain as to think of the old one.

* * *

**(99) IT'S ALL OVER**

_I didn't mean it_, Severus thinks.

That is all he is able to think. Severus has gone into some kind of shock after saying the word, his mind freezing over like a river in January. What is he supposed to do? There's something so horrible about this moment, about the silence which beats down on them like a drum. The world seems to be set on PAUSE, the heart in his chest perfectly still.

_I didn't mean it, _Severus thinks. He tries to say it, tries to get his lips to form the letters, but his tongue slips around the icy words. Somehow he cannot say it. So he watches Lily stare up at him, her eyes as wide and as shocked as his own.

It's all over.


	10. Moment 100

**DISCLAIMER:** _Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended_.

* * *

**CHAPTER TITLE:** Moment 100

**AUTHOR:** Relala

**BETA:** lady of scarlet

**FANDOM STATUS: **Canon

* * *

**(100) All The Moments**

"_Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry Potter?"_

"_I- I cannot answer that, my Lord." _

"_Can't you?" _

Terror makes him stumble with his well-practiced tongue, makes the back of his throat go dry as a desert at high noon. Severus is an actor messing up his lines and he knows that Voldemort will catch the hitch in his voice and lie in his eyes. It is tonight, of all the nights, that Severus has forgotten how to make a poker face. It is tonight, of all nights, that he knows he shall die for what he has done.

"_My want of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did so, but Lucius's wand shattered upon meeting Potter's." _

"_I-I have no explanation, my Lord."_

Severus wonders why he just doesn't straight out tell Voldemort that he refuses to give him that information. He is a dead man, this he is already certain of, and his life will be over quite soon. He knows the Dark Lord can hear his lies, that the Dark Lord is merely drawing out his moment of death, perhaps taking pleasure in the terror on his face. Voldemort already knows the information he is fishing for.

"_I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore." _

"_My Lord - let me go get the boy -"_

"_All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here," said Voldemort, his voice barely above a whisper, "wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner ... and I think I have the answer."_

It's in this moment, this slow and silent moment right before his death, that Severus knows it really is true what they say. His life really is flashing before his eyes.

He sees Lily laughing underneath the shady trees, his father sitting in the living room watching TV, Remus Lupin offering him a hand up, James glaring at him across the classroom, tiny Harry Potter on his first day of school, Lucius holding his newborn son, Dumbledore making tea with McGonagall in the staff room ...

"_Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen." _

He sees a hundred moments as he dies on the floor, the life slowly slipping out of him.

THE END

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**_"Reviews are the only payment FanFiction authors receive. Even if it's just a word or two, leaving a review lets me know you've passed this way."_**


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